


Music, She Heard

by sevenall



Category: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-15
Updated: 2008-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenall/pseuds/sevenall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ari may need the Warricks, but she needs the Nyes, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Music, She Heard

**Author's Note:**

> Written for quantumseraph

 

 

Music, She Heard

Mathematical prowess is often accompanied by musicality, or so it is said. The clone of Estelle Bok had possessed neither. By the time she was halfway through university, it was clear that she would never be able to continue the work of her predecessor or even understand its basic tenets. As the geneset itself was flawlessly copied, her handlers and teachers felt the the talent must be there, only hidden or channeled in another direction. They spent the next decade trying to find an academic field in which she might excel. Even music, the only program she ever expressed an interest in, would have been some consolation prize. But every single note from her hand was thoroughly analyzed for mathematical or musical brilliance, either would have done, and all agreed that she could not transcribe worth shit.

Denys Nye quite enjoys her music, especially her Broken Symphony in A flat minor. It has been called simplistic, pretentious and overwrought, all of which is certainly true. He can hear every flaw in it that was ever pointed out by a critic; he also hears more. When the apartment has been silent for too long, he will ask the Minder to play it. The music stirs something in him, touches on his deep-sets and fluxes them. He is a man not generally given to flux and the sensation is not wholly pleasant, but he values it nonetheless. 

Ari could flux him like that and she is learning how to do it again. She managed very well in their last skirmish over lunch, as he stopped eating before she did. Considering Ari's finicky eating habits and his own appreciation for food, it is not as narrow a victory as it may seem. And, other concerns aside, it is good to see Ari coming into her own again. He was too young to remember when it happened before, but these past years have filled in the gaps in his knowledge of her. He knows her now as a baby, a toddler, a precocious child, a teenager and a young woman. Middle-age and rejuv, he remembers from before, and though he did not know it at the time, the inevitable failure of rejuv. The frozen corpse with frost in its eyelashes looked nothing like Ari, smaller and more fragile than she ever was.

There are differences, of course, and some of them nodal. Jane and Ollie. Base One. The fish and the horses. Perhaps most importantly, Denys is not James Carnath. He would have played the part if required to, but thankfully Ari's Rezner scores were high enough that he took a chance with the program. Not to mention that he has tried too damned hard to teach her affection to throw it all away in a few distasteful acts. There is not enough tape in space to teach Ari to love, but affection seemed like a real possibility.

Ironically, it is probably Justin Warrick who has benefitted most from whatever success they have had with that. If Justin was not the PR of Jordan Warrick, Denys would find Ari's interest in the man amusing if not reassuring, another of her personality quirks emerging and right on schedule, too. But Justin is the PR of Jordan Warrick, Ari is more impressionable than she thinks, Planys is only a ten-hour flight away and Giraud, Giraud is in a hurry.

Denys is not. He still runs Reseune. Giraud still holds the Science seat. Things are as they should be, indeed, as they have been since Ari's death. Giraud's medical reports change nothing. Ari's rejuv had been failing, too. And Giraud, while not documented to the same degree, is documented more than he knows. 

They had less on Rubin and a great deal of what they did have was filtered through psychotherapists of Stella Rubin's choosing. They built the database in real-time, in dynamic sets, leaving variables empty wherever they had to. Ari's work, of course, and without her, no one knew how to fill in the blanks. Considering how things turned out, that might have been for the best. The Rubin boy should count himself lucky. All that is required from him is that he does not kill himself and the project will be deemed a success. 

So they took the pressure of the Rubin boy. Not so with Ari. Rubin himself meant little to them, while the Rubin project was useful, both as control and cover for expenses and computer time, but Ari is Reseune. With her, they threw everything they had at her geneset, hoping that Ari would emerge. They staked Reseune's future on her, damn near bankrupted themselves in the process, and Denys thinks she would have approved of this. Either way, she came through for them and Denys may now allow himself the luxury to think of what comes next.

Aging, decay, rejuv failure are all easy to imagine; he sees it all around him and is halfway there himself. But he can hardly imagine himself in a childhood past-to-be. A quiet, unassuming boy with odd Rezner scores and he recalls with some amusement how he would rather eat than talk. Unremarkable in almost every way, Denys is proof that brilliance does not need to come with instability and flux. He thinks.

He is fond of his comforts, such as the memories of a little girl at his breakfast table, flanked by her azi, but he indulges in them with care. Little girls grow up and old men grow older and while it is not in his power to turn back time itself, clocks can be reset. He should like a few more years, if he has them, to finish his book and his macrosystem algorithms, but it is really all the same to him. Ari may need the Warricks, but she needs the Nyes too, both of them, and when asked, she did not deny there was identity. He will be the same. They will all be the same, in time.

Denys Nye sits in his apartment, waiting. A glass of brandy on the table; he does not touch it. Base Two surrounds him like a living presence, its fractal patterns of data spiralling into infinity around him. Beyond the soft hum of information, he fancies that he can hear the music of Estelle Bok, though the recording has ended long ago. When Seely tells him that Abban is outside bearing a message from Giraud, he does not answer for some time.

FIN 

 


End file.
